1. Technical Field
The present invention relates to a method and system for transmitting content via a communication device.
2. Background Art
There are now in place systems for enabling a communication device, such as a personal computer, to download via a communication medium, such as the Internet, a variety of content stored on a server, such as moving-image data, music-data, and the like. To access, download and use such content, a user must generally pay a charge to a data provider hosted; at the server.
However, once a user of a communication device has downloaded content upon payment of a charge, the user is able to distribute the content using wired or wireless communication, such as IrDA, without being routed via the original content server. In this way, downloaded content for which a fee is payable may be duplicated without payment of the fee. Such distribution is problematic in that copyright may be infringed, and royalty payments avoided.
Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open Publication No. 2001-167016 proposes a communication system for overcoming this problem. In the proposed system, distribution information is appended to content downloaded from a server to a communication device. When distribution information (hereinafter referred to as redistribution restriction information) is appended to content, secondary distribution or redirection of the downloaded content to another communication device is prohibited. Thus, when content having such information appended to it is once downloaded to a communication device, the communication device is unable to redistribute the content.
However, at the present time, a large number of communication devices are not equipped to process redistribution restriction information appended to downloaded content; and transition to use of devices equipped with such a function, especially in the case of mobile phone models that are already in widespread use, will inevitably be gradual.
In the interim, there remains a problem that communication devices not equipped with a function for processing redistribution restriction information appended to downloaded content will continue to be able to redistribute such content.